Pictures all Grainy and I dont know why, Please HELP

[nutmeg]

Hello everyone. I'm somewhat new to photography (and still shooting in "P" mode most of the time)

Anyways, my last two photoshoots with family/friends have resulted in pretty grainy photos, (It almost looks their skin is "Dirty" plus they looked kind of "Plastic"). I dont know what kind of weird setting I have accedentally set. My camera has never done this before.

I have a Canon 5D (not the new Mk II but the Original Mk I )
I was shooting in "P" mode, oh and I had the ISO set to 100

I was shooting outside at 6pm. It was sunny but not overly Bright.

Here is a cropped in section of one of the pictures so you can see what I mean. (This is right off of the camera, nothing edited on it)



***NOW Here is an Image I took 2 days Ago... and its nice and SHARP and no "Noise" at all. (this just has some very simple brightness/contrast type edit to it)




Please HELP, I have no idea whats going on. The only think I "remember" changing was the ISO to 100.

[benjamieson]

Hi nutmeg,

I'm not seeing anything particularly grainy in the first sample. The white balance is a bit weird and it's a little under exposed, but not excessively noisy.

the skin could be down to lighting - I'm presuming form the catchlights that you were using some form of flash? If it was the onboard one, this will have the effect of 'flattening' the skintones somewhat - added in with the minimal light it may be an issue.

Can you post the EXIF info for each, with flash info if its in there? Would help decipher what your camera is doing.

Ben

[PowerPix]

I'm not seeing much of any grain in the first one either.

[nutmeg]

Originally Posted by benjamieson

Can you post the EXIF info for each, with flash info if its in there? Would help decipher what your camera is doing.

Ben

It was an External flash that was mounted to my camera, I pointed it at them to try to get rid of the deep shadows on there faces. However even on the ones where I used NO flash at all (Just natural Lighting) they look just as "Noisy" and not as smooth and detailed as the bellow pictures.

I'm not sure how to get any more of the EXIF info other the clicking "Info" on my camera when viewing the picture.

All the information i can find is;

1/60
5.6
sRGB
ISO 100
RAW
+/- -1
Flash +3
P

[nutmeg]

Originally Posted by PowerPix

I'm not seeing much of any grain in the first one either.

Maybe "Grain" isnt' the word I'm looking for then

But I can see a Deffinit loss in Image Quality between the two. (I used the Flash for both pictures as well)

[benjamieson]

OK, Looking at your EXIF, you had exposure compensation for the first shot set to -1, i.e. your camera was set to deliberately underexpose the image by a full stop.

This is going to be part of the problem - and definitely why the shot look underexposed.

Your flash is also set to a full three stops above the norm. This means you're camera is deliberately underexposing and attempting to compensate with flash.

This might be the cause of the perceived IQ issue

[benjamieson]

Would you object to me reposting a quick edit of your shot with the exposure and white balance semi corrected? (Not perfect as you have two different colour light sources in play which is making the WB change over different parts of the image)

Ben

[lputman]

I do agree the first is underexposed. The focal length of photos are not the same. The first is 38mm while the second is 75mm. It isn't fair to compare the two unless they are similar in nature. I personally don't see any excessive noise in the first.

[nutmeg]

Originally Posted by benjamieson

OK, Looking at your EXIF, you had exposure compensation for the first shot set to -1, i.e. your camera was set to deliberately underexpose the image by a full stop.

This is going to be part of the problem - and definitely why the shot look underexposed.

Did you do *any* post on the shot? Did you up the exposure in your processing software at all? Even a tiny bit?

i did absolutly no post work on it at all, other then opening it in Lightroom to then save it from a RAW file to a JPEG so I could post it online (that and Croping in tighter on the picture so you could see the detail)

But i find it already looks like its been over "Sharpened" or something. It has that kind of look to it and I dont know why.

Thanks for pointing out the exposusre shot was set to -1, I hadn't noticed it was set to that.

Any other thoughts on what may be causing them to look "Fake" ?
any suggestions or tips on taking photos outside on a sunny day when the people have lots of shadows on their faces that you need to get rid of ?

Thanks so much for everyones help.

[nutmeg]

Originally Posted by benjamieson

Would you object to me reposting a quick edit of your shot with the exposure and white balance semi corrected? (Not perfect as you have two different colour light sources in play which is making the WB change over different parts of the image)

Ben

I would 100% LOVE for you to try and fix it !!
as long as you explain HOW you went about fixing it, so that I can try to impliment them myself.

Also what do you mean by "You have two different colour light sources in play" ??

Sorry for my ignorance, I am still learning